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Questprobe
Questprobe is a trilogy of graphical adventure video games featuring Marvel Comics characters. The three games are Questprobe featuring The Hulk, Questprobe featuring Spider-Man and Questprobe featuring The Human Torch and The Thing. Design The games were designed by Scott Adams, developed and published by Adventure International and the first was originally released in 1984 for the Atari 8-bit family, Apple II, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 16 and Commodore 64 with the sequels being published each following year. The original plan was for a series of twelve games, but Adventure International's bankruptcy in 1985 brought a rapid and premature end to the line. The manual of Questprobe featuring the Hulk credits John Romita Sr., Mark Gruenwald and Kem McNair with creating the art; however, it is not clear if this is the in-game art, or the artwork in the manual. The manual feature quite detailed images. After this first title in the series, Scott Adams did a major upgrade to his adventure game engine. Because of this, Questprobe featuring The Hulk was much rougher than the subsequent titles in the series. It could only handle two word directions at a time and understood very few terms. The second Questprobe adventure which featured Spiderman improved on the "verb noun" command interface of The Hulk and allowed fuller sentence inputs. The title also incorporated improved graphics.http://www.mobygames.com/game/spider-man Games * Questprobe featuring The Hulk (1984) for Acorn Electron, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, DOS, Dragon 32, ZX Spectrum * Questprobe featuring Spider-Man (1984) for Acorn Electron, Atari 8-bit, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, DOS, Dragon 32, ZX Spectrum, MSX * Questprobe featuring Human Torch and the Thing (1985) for Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64, DOS, ZX Spectrum In addition, a compilation entitled Adventure Series 13+ was released by Tex-Comp in 1984 for the TI-99/4A. Cancelled X-Men game The fourth title in the series was to include the X-Men. This game was partly coded by Scott Adams but never saw the light of day as a published game, as Adventure International became bankrupt during its development in 1986. Comic book tie-ins A Questprobe comic book tie-in was also released. Originally intended as a 12-issue miniseries, this series was canceled after issue #3 (November 1985) due to Adventure International's bankruptcy.[http://www.comics.org/series/2888/ Questprobe] at the Grand Comics Database The story intended for issue #4, featuring the X-Men, was published in Marvel Fanfare #33 (July 1987).[http://www.comics.org/issue/43105/ Marvel Fanfare #33] at the Grand Comics Database The events of the ''Questprobe comic book were later followed up on in the Quasar series. References External links * *[http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseek.cgi?regexp=^Questprobe$&phrase Questprobe series] at World of Spectrum *[http://www.uvlist.net/groups/info/questprobe Questprobe series screenshots and statistics] Category:1980s interactive fiction Category:Adventure International games Category:Amstrad CPC games Category:Apple II games Category:Atari 8-bit family games Category:BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Category:Commodore 16 and Plus/4 games Category:Commodore 64 games Category:Defunct American comics Category:DOS games Category:Dragon 32 games Category:Superhero video games Category:Hulk (comics) video games Category:Video games based on Marvel Comics Category:Spider-Man in video games Category:Fantastic Four video games Category:Video games developed in the United States Category:Video games set in New York City Category:ZX Spectrum games